Brett Young ‘Didn’t Even Have to Ask’ Charles Kelley to Co-Write ‘Here Tonight’

For the lead single to his upcoming new album, Ticket to L.A., country star Brett Young went into the writing room with another big name: Lady Antebellum's Charles Kelley. However, Young says the collaboration wasn't a careful calculation to get the two artists in the same room; in fact, he explains, it happened pretty organically.

"I didn't even have to ask Charles," Young recalls. "A couple weeks before, we'd gone golfing, and he found out what a bad golfer I was. I had two writers -- Justin Ebach and Ben Caver -- out for the weekend, and we were in the catering tent at lunchtime. Anyone who knows Charles' personality, he walked right up and was like, 'Y'all out here writing this weekend?' And they said, 'Yeah.' And he goes, 'I wanna write, too.'

"I mean, he just didn't waste any time," Young continues with a laugh. "But we're all just such big fans that we were fired up."

Over the course of the weekend, Young, Kelley, Ebach and Caver wound up writing three songs together, including "Here Tonight."

"Man, what a great writer and singer," Young says of Kelley. "It was a blast."

Young enjoyed writing with Kelley so much that they continued to collaborate over the course of Lady A's You Look Good World Tour, which Young joined as opening support. "We wrote three that weekend and then ended up writing five or six over the course of the tour," Young explains. "But ["Here Tonight"] was such a fun write, and I think it was the perfect song for the end of summer."